2011 Nov 4 - T's Adoption Day!

Tegan was awake right at about 5am just as his schedule says though he did not want his bottle right away.  He woke up without a word, just kinda laid there looking around trying to recall where he was.  I decided not to have a crib brought up, decided we'd just share the king bed for some bonding.  He slept great and maneuvered closer to me as the night went. Still the best (still only about 5 hours) night of sleep I've had here though.


He did eventually take his bottle, as you can see in the pictures after we took a bath in the sink (only a shower in this room otherwise) and got dressed for the day. We then met up with mom and aunt Sharon at about 7 for breakfast. Tegan sure can eat. He ate a variety of foods, though we have figured out he doesn't do a lot of chewing and therefore have to stick with soft easy foods, otherwise, he wants to spit them out.  He is ever so polite when he needs to do this though, he will point to his mouth and wait for a napkin to be put under it. Reminds me of Angel as she was the same way.


Today was the day we finalized the adoption - he officially became a Downey!  We met our guide at 8:30am to head to the Shanghai Registration Center of Marriage and Adoption office for his Adoption certificate, you can see the "official" photos we took once that paperwork was complete I had to once again state why we wanted to adopt him.  Then we moved on to the notary office where I had to agree that we would never abandon him and would treat him like he was a biological child, which of course I agreed to with hesitation!  Signed another document here, finalizing the adoption!!!!  All done by 10:30am. 


After a quick stop at a 7 - 11 near our hotel for some instant noodle for Tegan's lunch, we were back at the hotel before the morning was over! After eating his noodles and many of his gamma's PB & crackers it was nap time. I took him to the bed to get ready to lay down with him, just as I had done yesterday, and for the first time he began to cry.  He shook his head no and tear began to roll down his face with a very sad look.  I told him it was nap time, scooped him up and snuggled him to sleep. Mama would love to snuggle! And so he slept for about 2 hours.


Upon Tegan's waking, I gave him a bottle, which he guzzled down and we prepared to take a little walk to a nearby bank to exchange some money and find somewhere to eat dinner.  We managed all the above without needing to go but a few blocks from the hotel.  As we were standing at a street corner waiting to cross, looking a little unsure of where we were going, an older Chinese man asked if he could be of any help - I thought how kind of him because honestly, we had really just gotten a lot of stare downs of Tegan up to this point.  We politely told him we were ok and thanked him for his offer.


We ate at a Coffee House Restaurant that had many variety of dishes, some very strange to our American culture. Stewed pigs hooves (yum) and many others.  Mom and I settled on Sweet and Sour Pork while Aunt Sharon went with the Kung Po Chicken.  The sweet and sour pork was quite sour, very vinegar tasting but I thought it was good. Mom's pork seemed to be not as tender as mine.  Aunt Sharon's chicken, well some of the pieced still seemed to have bones in them, more like small chicken wings.  The flavor was good and it wasn't as spicy as it looked like it could have been, there were lots of hot peppers in it. They brought Tegan a check, corn and carrot soup in which I added my rice to to thicken it up.  He seemed to like it.  I had also ordered him a corn dish that was corn cooked in egg and what tasted like Parmesan cheese - it was good. After eating much of it, Tegan began finger feeding me one kennel of corn at a time.  When it came time to go and we pulled the plate from in front of him, he got a bit upset and began to cry - for the second time today.  I again pulled him into my lap and snuggled him and after a minute or two we had him smiling again,


Back at the hotel he and I played with some soft blocks I brought, built towers and knocked them down. When that wasn't as fun anymore I blew up a balloon and he got a kick out of that for some time. It was during this time that he cried for the third and final time today.  I had opened the rooms safe to put away the money from the bank visit and someone started to push buttons.  I told him no (I know he doesn't understand English yet) and told him more than once attempting to divert his attention. He tends to just laugh when I tell him no while shaking my head no and when he did it again I grabbed him by the hand, told him no and walked him away from it.  Well I think the point finally got across as he began to pucker up to cry and began hitting his thighs with his hands.  I gave him a moment to understand that I didn't want him doing that and then scooped him up and all was amend.


After Skyping with Baba and the girls it was bed time for Tegan.  I snuggled him for a bit then laid him on the pillow next to me and he drifted off to sleep.


Today's observance - he really came out of his shell today. On gotcha day he only wanted to be held, did not want to walk around.  This morning he was running around the room, we played stacking cups again and a little orneriness showed but so did mom's. He is learning quickly that when he throws things to the floor, he has to pick them up, mom doesn't do it.